• Don’t Try and Hold the Beach Ball Underwater

    January 30, 2014 Author: NuttyLizzy
    Comments Off

    It’s been three months since my accident. I’m still walking in a boot, but at least I’m walking. I go in to see my doctor on Monday and oh the dread… Not because of the foot. Not because I know he is going to say two more weeks in the boot, but because I am experiencing a bad case of transference towards him. I know that’s all it is. I know it’s because he was the one to take care of me during a crisis, and I have been utterly dependent on him for a while now, but the logic does not make it go away. I actually met with my therapist to ask her about it and she advised the following.

    “Don’t try and avoid it, that will just make it worse. Acknowledge it. Accept it. Don’t repress it. Don’t move away from it. Don’t quit going to him. Don’t avoid driving down the street where you know he lives. Just accept it and it will fade.”

    In other words, don’t try and hold the beach ball underwater.

    The thing is, it’s hard to feel it fade when he blurs the boundaries, and oh do I want him to continue to do that, but how is that helping me? He’s married. Has kids. I may be a temptation to him but that’s all I am. In the meantime, I have his cell phone number, he’s come to my office for an office visit and not charged me for it, he allows me to text him and he texts me back, and most pointedly, that last visit we had… the tension in the room was like a thick fog. Every move one of us made the other mirrored. Every expression. There were long drawn out pauses where neither of us spoke, yet the visit went on to a full 40 minutes. I actually felt nervous and had a hard time holding his gaze.

    So now the question. What do I do on Monday? The way I see it, I have three options. 1) Ignore the entire thing and remain completely neutral (oh yeah right. That has been working so well!) 2) Openly flirt and see what happens (a good way continue the agony) 3) Have a conversation with him and tell him directly what’s going on.

    Unfortunately the last one, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, will probably yield the best results. For me, not for him. I wish I knew what to do. I mean I wish I knew what I was going to do. I’d like to talk openly about it, but I truly believe that I’ll be too nervous. I bet I don’t say anything at all. Option 1. No flirting, but no talking about it either. In other words, keep holding the beach ball underwater.

  • Mania, Mania, How It’s Rewarded!

    October 4, 2013 Author: NuttyLizzy
    Comments Off

    So I’ve been on the up and up lately. I thought that the medication would keep this at bay, but as I understand it, it only prolongs the periods between episodes. I have to admit the hypomanic phase is really rewarding and I love feeling it again. It’s like a drug rushing through my veins ~ ~ ~ I am extra attractive, spontaneously witty, ultra productive, irresistibly charming. I feel so God damned good! I can overlook anything!

    I drank an entire bottle of wine last night and should have woken up with a terrible hangover, but instead I got up at 6 a.m. and went into work after organizing the entire house for when I would get home. I walked into the lab and the girls complimented me on how great I looked. I thought they were just giving me shit, but no, they were sure that I looked more “refreshed”. I quickly quipped “It must be the run I had this morning”… better than telling them I have bipolar disorder and I am happily in the manic phase.

    I took the day and wrote up an entire contract for the operating procedures of the training center, something that I have been putting for nearly a year. My boss was impressed. I was exhausted. Again.

    I have the hardest time wrapping my head around explaining this illness to people. Maybe that’s the real reason I am writing this blog. There are so many misconceptions wrapped around mental illness. Most people have no understanding of it and think that its something that you can control if you put your mind to it. I think of it as a heavy subject, which is why I don’t discuss it.

    For me, on the medication I realize I have to be on, the mood swings are a subtle shift that most people don’t even recognize. But the thing is, if I’m up I’m rewarded and if I’m down well it’s, “You’re just tired. Give yourself a break”. What people don’t realize is that mania, with all it’s attractiveness, generally winds up making me feel like I want to hurl a plate at someones head, and depression makes me think about that 38 Smith & Wesson, which is why I don’t own one.

    I know that being in a position of high stress right now is bringing this on and I’m trying my best to control it from outside of my mind. But I have to be honest… it’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt my old friend mania working the magic in me, and for the first time I understand why people choose to go off their medication for this illness.

  • Trashed Relationships

    September 21, 2013 Author: NuttyLizzy
    Comments Off

    My relationship of 5 years has dissolved. I can’t help but think that my bipolar has something to do with it. I understand that this illness has affected all of my relationships in the past. I’ve lost countless friends. Moved every two years; ran away from everyone after creating a scene. The question is, how do I examine what my bipolar brings to the table, without creating self-doubt?

    I was trying to explain it to someone a couple weeks ago. Aside from the brain being totally different in someone without bipolar disorder (more on that later), there is a filter through which I see the world. We all have them. A mothers view of things is completely different from a single woman. The rich businessman can’t possibly see the same view of the world as some homeless guy sleeping under a bridge. We all have a filter. The only difference is mine is not a completely healthy one.